"Ah well now, Barnay," said St. George grimly, "you couldn't have an easier career."
Little Cawthorne, from leaning on the rail staring out at the island, suddenly pulled himself up and addressed St. George.
"Here we are," he complained, "here has been me coming through the watery deep all the way from Broadway, with an octopus clinging to each arm and a dolphin on my back, and you don't even ask how I stood the trip. And do you realize that it's sheer madness for the five of us to land on that island together?"
"What do you mean?" asked St. George.
The little man shook his grey curls.
"What if it's as Barnay says?" he put it. "What if they should bag us all--who'll take back the glad news to the harbour? Lord, you can't tell what you're about walking into. You don't even know the specific gravity of the island," he suggested earnestly. "How do you know but your own weight will flatten you out the minute you step ashore?"
St. George laughed. "He thinks he is reading the fiction page," he observed indulgently. "Still, I fancy there is good sense on the page, for once. We don't know anything about anything. I suppose we really ought not to put all five eggs in one basket. But, by Jove--"
He looked over at Amory with troubled eyes.
"As host of this picnic," he said, "I dare say I ought to stay aboard and let you fellows--but I'm hanged if I will."
Little Cawthorne reflected, frowning; and you could as well have expected a bird to frown as Little Cawthorne. It was rather the name of his expression than a description of it.
"Suppose," he said, "that Bennietod and I sit rocking here in this bay--if it is a bay--while you two rest your chins on the top of that ledge of rock up there, and look over. And about to-morrow or day after we two will venture up behind you, or you could send one of the men back--"
"My thunder," said Bennietod wistfully, "ain't I goin' to get to climb in de pantry window at de palace--nor fire out of a loophole--"
"Bennietod an' I couldn't talk to a prince anyway," said Little Cawthorne; "we'd get our language twisted something dizzy, and probably tell him 'yes, ma'am.'"
St. George's eyes softened as he looked at the little man. He knew well enough what it cost him to make the suggestion, which the good sense of them all must approve. Not only did Little Cawthorne always sacrifice himself, which is merely good breeding, but he made opportunities to do so, which is both well-bred and virtuous. When Rollo came up with the oil-skins they told him what had been decided, and Rollo, the faithful, the expressionless, dropped his eyelids, but he could not banish from his voice the wistfulness that he might have been one to stay behind.